1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a clamping fitting to attach glass panes with a clamp screw, penetrating a bore hole in the glass pane. The fitting is mountable with its screw shank in or at a carrier structure. The clamp screw presents a screw head and a screw shank both conceived as individual components, and the screw head is vertically movable with regard to the screw shank's axis in four degrees of freedom while locatable at a screw shank's holding flange. The screw head furthermore possesses a female threaded cone nut arranged inside the bore hole in the glass pane according to German Patent No. 196 52 773.
2. Background Information
The connection of glass panes with each other to build complete glass curtains or the attachment of glass panes to suitable carrier elements is systematically realized by bore holes in the glass pane. Since the before-mentioned bore holes, as well as the attachment or connection devices engaging or penetrating the bore holes, are subject to certain production tolerances, the normally encountered difficulty includes the problem of realizing the true alignment of the bore hole in the glass pane and the attachment device's or clamping fitting's axis. This problem is solved with the teaching according to the main patent application. In further development of this teaching, it is profitable to not only compensate for production tolerances in the glass pane's plane, but to find moreover an adaptation possibility or adjustability to several distances of the glass pane with regard to the proper attachment point, for example a wall. This is not only valid for mounting a single glass pane having bending moment-free and tension-free characteristics in relation to a wall or the kind, but especially with regard to the true alignment of several adjoining glass panes with regard to each other. It is commonly accepted that, due to construction tolerances, the true-aligned and tension-free mounting of glass panes imperatively necessitates varying distances of the individual bore holes in the glass pane with regard to the attachment point at the wall or the kind. The distance between the bore hole in the glass pane and the attachment point at the wall, or a connecting rod assembly or the kind, must consequently be conceived in a manner that permits variation of location and distance.
European Patent No. 0 617 190 A1 reveals a connection of adjoining glass panes realized by means of a clamping rail bridging the butt joint between the adjoining glass panes at the pane's back front or rear face. Fixing the clamping rail at the glass pane takes place via a cone nut inserted into the glass pane's bore hole, which cone nut presents a female thread directed towards the clamping rail, into which thread a fixing rod, arranged between the cone nut and the clamping rail, is adjustable to vary its location and distance by means of a locknut. Adjustment, in order to achieve a true aligned and tension-free attachment of glass panes, is done in the glass pane's back front or rear face area. Either the back front or rear face must be accessible or other accessories to adjust the position of the adjoining locknuts must be available as they determine the aligned placement of the glass pane with respect to the adjoining glass panes. In practical operation this means that the individual glass panes and the locknuts have to be readjusted several times, representing a huge time investment. Tolerance compensation of adjoining bore holes in the glass pane's plane is performed by a ball-type headed bearing of the connecting rod in the clamping rail. Altogether, with regard to construction as well as to assembly this is an expensive solution. Similar problems result from the mounting for a punctiform, that is, having the form or character of a point, bending moment-free support of multi-layer insulation glass panes according to the German utility model 93 18 862 U1. The mounting bolt employed there determines, by its screw-in depth into the associated mounting case, the glass pane's distance with regard to a wall or the kind, whereby this distance is only modifiable when manipulating the mounting bolt in the glass pane's back front or rear face area. Tolerance compensation is performed in the glass pane's plane between adjoining bore holes in the glass pane by means of bore holes presenting a relatively important diameter in the glass panes, which bore holes are filled in with cast resin during assembly. On the one hand, such important bore holes are not wanted for aesthetic reasons, and, on the other hand, the use of cast resin is correspondingly expensive.
The German Patent No. 44 36 483 A1 discloses an attachment device to attach sheet facings. At a reference level a holding device or carrier structure is solidly linked into which structure's female thread a male threaded bolt is variably screwable to adjust the distance. The bolt's free end on the side opposite to the reference level presents a tapered bolt end at which an internal clamping jaw is supported that is movable in a revolving manner, but axially is stationary. Between the before-mentioned internal clamping jaw and an external clamping jaw that may be clamped with the internal clamping jaw, a sheet facing or the kind is clamped in a way that the sheet facing together with the clamping jaws may pivot in a limited angle around the tapered bolt end. The clamping jaws together with the tapered bolt end form a ball-and-socket joint that allows the sheet facing along with the clamping jaws to be rotated around a swivel point.
The disadvantage of this solution is that the distances are invariable between several attachment devices for one sheet facing, so that mechanical shearing forces or transverse strains are only largely avoided if the ball-and-socket joint swivel point of all attachment devices is located in the sheet facing's thickness center. A clamp screw of that species, whose screw head is fixable at a screw shank's holding flange while vertically movable with regard to the screw shank's axis in four degrees of freedom, that is the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal direction, has not been realized.
German Patent No. 33 28 338 C2 furthermore divulges a device to adjust a first component with regard to a second component, where a distance liner is rotatably fixed at one of both components, which liner's male thread corresponds with the second component's female thread, so that, when rotating the distance liner, the distance between both components is changeable. An apparent motion of both components in four degrees of freedom is not provided for in this connection.